Reviews with content warning for Rape - Crank

I don’t have a lot of experience reading books in verse, especially not of this length. Honestly, I would never have picked up this book except for the Bad Bitch Book Club 2024 prompt to read a book whose protagonist shares your name. You would not believe how difficult it is to find books about another Kristina with a K. Could I have made my life easier with Christina or Cristina? Yes. But that’s not my name.

That being said, I did find the book compelling. I hesitate to say enjoy due to the subject matter. I didn’t struggle to follow the narrative as much as I thought I would and I wanted to continue following Kristina, even if her downward spiral was painful to see. Please make sure to read all content warnings before starting because some of her experiences are traumatic and graphic. I can empathize with her jumbled feelings about her parent’s divorce, feeling invisible, and yearning to shed the “good girl” persona she feels she’s been boxed into. However, I don’t understand why she felt her first taste of rebellion should be sex and drugs, but we are different people. It’s frightening to see just how quickly her life unravels. This book takes place over less than a year. Kristina could be anyone. Therefore, anyone could fall into the same traps.

My main “ick” with the story is the fact that the author freely admits that it is based on the experiences her daughter went through. The author tries to address this in a note following the conclusion of the story, but it was very defensive. Hopkins says the story wasn’t written to be published, but she ultimately did and built a career off of its success. I can’t fully put into words how much of a betrayal this would feel to me if my own mother did something similar, advertising my mistakes and personal demons to the world and making money off of it. Sure, that money eventually went to help her daughter and her daughter’s children. But it took a long time. This feels similar to family vloggers or parents of child stars using their children to support the entire family, even though Hopkins’ daughter was an adult by the time it was published.

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jguiley's review

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dark emotional fast-paced

4.0

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bishopbox's review

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dark emotional sad tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

This book is very heavy and personal. I think it’d be wrong of me to explain my feelings without giving a little background of myself. Truthfully, I was a really boring teen who just went to school and then came home and played video games all day. No drugs.
Reading this book was a tragic eye-opener to the things I knew happened to people at my school, but I never witnessed myself.
This is a tragic and powerful tale. Many places are pushing to ban this book and I want to push against that. This is a very real reality that many teens go through. Crank doesn’t glamorize drugs or demonize the main character for falling into the trap. Just tells the story as the tragic awful thing that it is. And not only is it realistic and gritty, but it’s written phenomenally with beautiful poetry and prose.

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